[TUHS] Re: Dave Cutler recollection about Xenix

Something this brings back to mind that I always wonder about with Microsoft and their OS choices: So they went with Windows NT for their kernel, scraped the Windows environment off the top of DOS and dolloped it on top. Has there been any explanation over the years why they also decided to keep the MSDOS CLI interface? It's not like the NT kernel couldn't handle simple stuff like a UNIX-y shell, tools like grep and sed, etc. and Microsoft had code in Xenix they probably could've considered using for that. Was it not wanting to have any licensing questions by avoiding anything that smelled like Xenix at all? Or was the consumer base at the time that invested in the MSDOS environment that handing them a Bourne shell with some ubiquitous UNIX tools would've just been unworkable? Feels like a lost opportunity, they could've had their kernel and their desktop environment and still given folks a more robust CLI. Instead stuff like UWIN, Cygwin, etc. had to come along and fill the void. That was something I was hoping he'd talk about when I clicked, but I didn't catch anything particular about the CLI choice.